House Cup.
At Hogwarts, among the nearly thousand students of the Four Great Houses, most were content to live ordinary, unnoticed lives, seemingly indifferent to worldly competition.
If there was one thing every student cared deeply about, one thing they wanted to fight for... it was the House Cup.
During their time at Hogwarts, every outstanding performance earned students points. Every rule violation or mistake, meanwhile, resulted in points being deducted. At the end of the year, the House with the highest score won the House Cup... Though there was no material reward, the honor was recorded in the school archives. To some extent, it represented the entire House's pride and reputation.
Even Ravenclaw, supposedly above such things, cared greatly about the House Cup. Those highly intelligent students who usually marched to the beat of their own drum were now rolling up their sleeves, ready to claim this year's House Cup. And it looked as though victory was already within reach.
That was right... Outside the Great Hall on the first floor of Hogwarts Castle, the school had posted the House Cup Points Chart. It looked like an ordinary notice board, divided into four sections by Gryffindor red, Hufflepuff yellow, Ravenclaw blue, and Slytherin green. Each section held a large hourglass filled with sparkling gemstones of the corresponding color, dazzling to the eye.
The number of gemstones represented each House's score. Whenever a teacher deducted points from a House, some of that House's gems vanished automatically. Whenever a House earned points, its gems increased accordingly. If someone wanted a more detailed look, hologram-like numbers appeared above the hourglasses, displaying each House's exact score. At the same time, the lion, badger, eagle, and snake representing the four Houses occasionally appeared on the board as well. When their House ranked highly, they